Find out how popular the last name Ramsey is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Ramsey.

Ramsey, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Ramsey surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Ramsey in America

Ramsey is the 412th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Ramsey surname appeared 78,350 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 27 people would have the surname Ramsey.

We can also compare 2010 data for Ramsey to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

The history of the last name Ramsey

The surname Ramsey is of English origin, deriving from the Old English ram, meaning "ram", and ey, meaning "island" or "flat land near a river". It is a locational name, referring to a place where rams were raised or grazed.

The earliest recorded instance of the name dates back to the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as "Ramesie" in reference to the town of Ramsey in Huntingdonshire. This settlement was established in the 7th century by St. Felix, a Burgundian missionary, who founded a Benedictine abbey there.

In the 12th century, the name was recorded as "Ramesy" and "Rameseye" in the Pipe Rolls of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. Over time, the spelling evolved to its modern form, Ramsey.

One of the earliest known bearers of the name was Sir John Ramsey, a Scottish knight who fought alongside Robert the Bruce in the Wars of Scottish Independence in the early 14th century. He was granted lands in Lothian for his service.

Another notable figure was Thomas Ramsey, a 16th-century English churchman who served as the Abbot of St. Mary's Abbey in York. He was born in the early 1500s and played a role in the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII.

In the 17th century, James Ramsey, a Scottish mathematician and astronomer, made significant contributions to the study of celestial mechanics. He was born in 1690 and was a professor at the University of St. Andrews.

The 18th century saw the rise of Allan Ramsey, a renowned Scottish poet and writer who was a prominent figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. He was born in 1686 and is best known for his collection of pastoral poems, "The Gentle Shepherd".

In the 19th century, Sir William Ramsey, a British chemist and Nobel laureate, discovered several noble gases, including neon, krypton, and xenon. He was born in 1852 and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 for his pioneering work in the field of noble gases.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Ramsey

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Ramsey.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

1. White only
2. Black only
3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
5. Hispanic
6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Ramsey was:

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Ramsey has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of the name Ramsey was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Ramsey, please contact us.

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